Ethernet 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE

Ethernet Most successful local area networking technology of last 20 years. Uses CSMA/CD technology Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection. A set of nodes send and receive frames over a shared link. Carrier sense means that all nodes can distinguish between an idle and a busy link. Collision detection means that a node listens as it transmits and can therefore detect when a frame it is transmitting has collided with a frame transmitted by another node. Uses ALOHA (packet radio network) as the root protocol Developed at the University of Hawaii to support communication across the Hawaiian Islands. For ALOHA the medium was atmosphere, for Ethernet the medium is a coax cable. 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE

Ethernet DEC and Intel joined Xerox to define a 10-Mbps Ethernet standard in 1978. This standard formed the basis for IEEE standard 802.3 More recently 802.3 has been extended to include a 100-Mbps version called Fast Ethernet and a 1000-Mbps version called Gigabit Ethernet. An Ethernet segment is implemented on a coaxial cable of up to 500 m. This cable is similar to the type used for cable TV except that it typically has an impedance of 50 ohms instead of cable TV’s 75 ohms. Hosts connect to an Ethernet segment by tapping into it. A transceiver (a small device directly attached to the tap) detects when the line is idle and drives signal when the host is transmitting. The transceiver also receives incoming signal. 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE

Ethernet The transceiver is connected to an Ethernet adaptor which is plugged into the host. The protocol is implemented on the adaptor. Multiple Ethernet segments can be joined together by repeaters. A repeater is a device that forwards digital signals. No more than four repeaters may be positioned between any pair of hosts. An Ethernet has a total reach of only 2500 m. Ethernet transceiver and adaptor 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE

Ethernet Any signal placed on the host is Ethernet broadcast network by a over the entire Signal is propagated in both directions. Repeaters forward the signal on all outgoing segments. Terminators attached to the end of each segment absorb the signal. Ethernet uses Manchester encoding scheme. Ethernet repeater 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE

New Technologies in Ethernet Instead of using coax cable, an Ethernet can be constructed from a thinner cable known as 10Base2 (the original was 10Base5) 10 means the network operates at 10 Mbps Base means the cable is used in a baseband system 2 means that a given segment can be no longer than 200 m Another cable technology is 10BaseT T stands for twisted pair Limited to 100 m in length With 10BaseT, the common configuration is to have several point to point segments coming out of a multiway repeater, called Hub Ethernet Hub 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE

Access Protocol for Ethernet The algorithm is commonly called Ethernet’s Media Access Control (MAC). It is implemented in Hardware on the network adaptor. Frame format Preamble (64bit): allows the receiver to synchronize with the signal (sequence of alternating 0s and 1s). Host and Destination Address (48bit each). Packet type (16bit): acts as demux key to identify the higher level protocol. Data (up to 1500 bytes) Minimally a frame must contain at least 46 bytes of data. Frame must be long enough to detect collision. CRC (32bit) 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE

Ethernet Addresses The address belongs to the adaptor, not the host. It is usually burnt into ROM. Ethernet addresses are typically printed in a human readable format As a sequence of six numbers separated by colons. Each number corresponds to 1 byte of the 6 byte address and is given by a pair of hexadecimal digits, one for each of the 4-bit nibbles in the byte Leading 0s are dropped. For example, 8:0:2b:e4:b1:2 is 00001000 00000000 00101011 11100100 10110001 00000010 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE

Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm Worst-case scenario: (a) A sends a frame at time t; (b) A’s frame arrives at B at time t + d; (c) B begins transmitting at time t + d and collides with A’s frame; (d) B’s runt (32-bit) frame arrives at A at time t + 2d. 16EC351 Computer networks unit II Mr.M.Jagadesh,AP/ECE